


Hunger plateaus at some point, or so I've been told

by Wobblegong



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Absolutely buckwild amounts of headcanon underpinning everything, Coming of Age, Drabble Collection, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Please never use this fool as a role model, Questionable to problematic choices that turn out fine in the end, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 19:42:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16919190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wobblegong/pseuds/Wobblegong
Summary: She is not a virgin in so very many ways. (Originally posted for an ask meme on tumblr.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing but original characters the whole way down starring my yes-I-do-RP-in-game character Keimahl Sterrgeimwyn, a Sea Wolf woman from further west than the in-game map bothers with. First three are Peak Sea Wolf™ and set aboard any number of ships; fourth is nebulously set on land.
> 
> Why yes, I *do* love headcanoning any in-game settings and cultures I can get my hands on.

The lad is young, handsy, and _brash_. Brash enough to keep following her into whatever hidey-hole she selects, brash enough to awkwardly squirm onto her lap and kiss her like adults do. Joke’s on him, at that distance she can taste the false bravado. (But it’s new, she wanted something like this, and it’ll be easy to tell him off and hide behind Mom later, so while it lasts she makes a point not to elbow him.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: age discrepancy in a sexual relationship, power discrepancy in a sexual relationship, peak Problematic™ life choices all around. (Still ends on a happy note.)

The first time she gets caught looking Keim panics and doubles down on inventory organization for three days. Maybe with someone else it’d be fine ( _ha ha ha no but denial is lovely_ ) but _that_ salty dog is, charitably, a mere decade older than her mother and she _swaggers_ when she walks, she doesn’t have the malice or the chop-happy twitches but she walks across the deck like a storm rolling over the sea and Keim had been doing her best to ignore her libido trilling like a siren every time someone with a pulse acknowledges she exists but _that one caught her staring **and smiled back.**_

It takes Keim a month to go from fleeing to nervous conversation to conveniently being around when the salty dog has time to kill. Keim learns her polite name ( _Faine_ ) and how long she’s been sailing ( _as long as you’d think, pretty_ ) and her preferred way to kill time in port ( _with an ale in one hand and a lass on my lap_ ). Not that facts matter while Keim’s nibbling on sweaty Elezen neck or Faine acts like she sincerely interested in the pancakes that Keim regretfully calls breasts, but she (narrowly) remains cognizant of “keeping up appearances.” (Nobody’s actually fooled except Keim’s family, who are all smiles that their eely dearie isn’t hiding from everyone she makes eyes at for the first time, featuring jokes about “maybe someday you’ll work up the nerve to hold hands” and Twelve above Keim’s poker face could pay the bills at this point.) It feels both shocking and inevitable when Faine coaxes her into permitting more than a hand up her _shirt_ and _ooohhh,_ now _that’s_ worth doing more than once.

The rest of the voyage passes in a haze of impatient anticipation and furtive meetings. Faine is utterly cordial when they part and Keim does her best to match it and it’s… not sad, Keim thought maybe she’s supposed to be sad? But she totally won the game of “swear the least and most quietly,” she kept a tally. There’s still reasons not to be but she finds herself curiously optimistic about the future.


	3. Chapter 3

Keim is never quite sure about the order of things, later, because arms over her shoulders and grog in front of her is the most irresistible temptation, but she’s pretty sure she was the first to make a joke (sharp-toothed grinning means it’s sincere, but if Mom overhears she can whine about drunken lies in the shape of bragging) and maybe it was a shade too lewd but again: alcohol, camraderie, she can’t be blamed. It’s surprising but not unwelcome when one of the passengers does more than laugh it off, and eventually everyone else shuffles off but he stays, and after that she remembers smothered giggling ( _confidence, Keimahl, strut like you’re the best thing in the room and sometimes it comes true_ ) and wobbly stumbling as they go back to the room he’s sharing with his “business partner” who _wasn’t_ slumming it with the crew, and for a horrible moment she’s convinced he’ll frown and fuss.

Instead he folds his arms and asks what the soggy bastard is on about, he knows he doesn’t like women. That’s confusing, given how things have been going, but said soggy bastard drops her hand and gracefully collapses across his “business partner”’s lap with a growl about like hell do you care as long as she’s got eyes to watch and then they crash into each other like waves breaking on rocks, and eventually she manages the presence of mind to sit down on one of the crates where she has a great view of clothes being flung aside and… well, it’s a great view.

She’s neither worried nor surprised a few days later when she stops by their room for business reasons and offers to sketch the highlights. The taller one relies on liquid courage, apparently, but his spluttering doesn’t do anything to stop his shorter "business partner's" grin as he says sure. (His grin can be just as sharp-toothed as hers. She’s as amused as she is looking forward to it.)


	4. Chapter 4

The lad– in truth a man fully grown, but he always comes across as an eager puppy– is a favorite for his pillow-talk. She starts turning him down on days where she has somewhere to be, just to avoid making herself late on account of conversations gone on too long, but he’s no less awed when she demonstrates all sorts of enjoyable things. And, too, it feels pleasantly cozy to lie about with him, idly discussing whatever flits through his head. Still, some corner of her mind marks it odd how often he flatters her, how insistent he is on the point.

Her schedule grows more full and still she finds time for him, but now he tries to offer her things. Fancy snacks ( _I’m fine with the last of the crackers, thank you_ ) and interesting books ( _if only I had somewhere to keep it, tis safer on your shelf_ ) and every time she shows up he points out the new bouquet and won’t be deterred until she says she likes it. It’s mildly maddening but still worth it to see the face he makes when she demonstrates what an unhurried bell’s worth of patience can do… so she brushes it off.

The day comes where he insists they meet out and about, he wheedles and talks about this one cook’s unbelievable dishes and how she _has_ to try them and she relents, but when he shows up he has flowers in his hand and a determined look as he goes on and on and she has no idea what to say to make it stop, as she gets sadder he just talks faster, until finally she talks over him, says what she’d hoped she wouldn’t need to: he’s a good soul and very kind, she hopes he finds what he’s looking for but she’s not special. It’s sad to see someone so deluded, she’d thought him smarter than that, but–

(It’ll be decades before it sinks into her, and years more after that, until the thought rises unbidden one day and she goes:  
oh.  
Well, _shit._  
And it won’t change anything, it wouldn’t have back then, but she leaves a little extra at Menphina’s feet and wishes, for his sake, that she could have at least _understood_ she was breaking someone’s heart.)


End file.
